The afternoon had a dramatic start with a tightly contested doubles point. “The doubles point was long but thankfully we were able to win,” head coach Jeff Brown said. “We’d like to win easier, but the way we won, it gave us some momentum. I have to give a lot of credit to Florida to how hard they fought, but I love the fight that we showed today as a team.”

The Gators took the first doubles match on court one behind an 8-5 victory by Stephane Piro and Bob van Overbeek over LSU’s Olivier Borsos and Roger Anderson. The Tigers evened the doubles matches on court two when LSU’s Stefan Szacinski and Tam Trinh bested Florida’s No. 53 Billy Federhofer and Gordon Watson 8-4.

On court three, the final doubles match between LSU’s Chris Simpson and Boris Arias and Florida’s Mike Alford and Florent Diep went into an 8-8 tiebreaker. The tiebreak was won by LSU 7-4 to win the set 9-8(4) and gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead.

Florida looked to reverse LSU’s momentum at the start of the singles matches.

The Gators took the first singles match of the night on court four. behind a 6-3, 6-3 victory by Mike Alford over LSU’s Mark Bowtell, evening the score at 1-1. The Tigers retook the lead at 2-1 on court three with Borsos’ 6-4, 6-4 win over Florida’s Federhofer. LSU pushed their lead to 3-1 on court one behind a clutch 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 win by No. 82 Simpson over Florida’s No. 125 Piro. Luke Johnson of Florida decreased the Tigers’ lead to 3-2 after a 6-7(5), 6-2, 7-5 win on court six over LSU’s Harrison Kennedy.

The match was clinched on court five by Arias with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Florida’s Watson. This is Arias’ second clinch of the season, both coming on the road against SEC opponents with his other clinch behind a clutch performance over then-No. 11 Texas A&M.

“Boris is showing some great character with these matches,” Brown said. “He’s beating some talented opponents and he helped us win a great match tonight.”

The match on court two between No. 102 Diep and LSU’s Szacinski was left unfinished with Diep leading 5-7, 6-2, 4-2.

The Tigers now hold a 27-25-1 all-time lead over the Gators.

The Tigers are on the road again this Sunday, March 31 at 1 p.m. CT in Columbia, S.C., to take on No. 25 South Carolina (13-7, 3-3 SEC).

For up-to-date information and behind the scenes access on the Tigers, fans can follow the LSU men's team on Twitter @lsutennis and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lsutennis.